Amid a wave of scrutiny over awarding a six-figure public contract to a private Catholic school, Mayor Sam Liccardo suggested reopening the contract to other schools — but his council colleagues didn’t agree.

On Wednesday, City Manager Dave Sykes recommended keeping the current contract with Cristo Rey intact and instead, perform better outreach to schools for future bids. A council committee unanimously agreed.

“I do think there’s a path forward where we do keep the Cristo Rey contract intact and go through a process where we engage other school districts in the city,” Sykes said during the Rules and Open Government Committee meeting. “Our outreach fell a little short. The city does a lot of procurements and a lot of different types of engaging. We do see an opportunity to do more robust outreach and get others to the table.”

The mayor’s proposal to rebid the controversial contract came after San José Spotlight’s report highlighted concerns from superintendents from the two largest public high school districts — East Side Union High School District and San Jose Unified School District — who said they were not originally notified of the proposal.

At a City Council meeting in early August, the city awarded $838,264 in funds for a work-study program with Cristo Rey San Jose Jesuit High School —co-founded by the mayor and his wife, among 18 others. More than 3,000 notifications were sent out through an online platform called BidSync, but Cristo Rey was the only qualifying candidate.

The program is a partnership between the school and the city, where 24 students will receive work experience or a paid internship at City Hall for the next four years. But following San José Spotlight’s reporting, a national watchdog organization announced an investigation into the matter, calling the city’s process “unconstitutional.”

At the meeting Wednesday, Councilmember Johnny Khamis raised concerns to Sykes about how “fair” the bidding process was and if it needs to change, even recommending the city look at conducting a potential study on how the process works.

“I want to use this as a learning experience,” said Khamis. “What could have gone better?”

Sykes said that though he did feel the process was fair, that the city has performed more targeted outreach with other proposals.

“It’s not uncommon on various types of procurement for us to do a targeted type of outreach,” added Sykes. “We do have the capacity to do that. When we do an RFP and people feel left out, that’s a sign that we need to improve the outreach process.”

The mayor originally proposed opening the contract for other bidders for the next three years after speaking directly with East Side Union High School District Superintendent Chris Funk, one of the two superintendents who told this news organization he wasn’t notified about the proposal.

In his memo, Liccardo said he wanted to notify “senior staff” at all three school districts via phone or in person about a potential new contact to ensure they had a chance to bid.

“I think that the challenge is this square peg was being fit into a round hole. We do lots of requirements very successfully on BidSync,” Liccardo said. “High schools don’t bid on things at the city. So emails went to the people that would have no interest in this. I think we just used the wrong approach here. And I think a phone call could probably solve a lot of that.”

Councilmember Sylvia Arenas added that when the proposal was sent out may have contributed to a lack of responses.

“School systems wind down around April and May and they’re trying to wrap up the the end of the year,” Arenas said. “I think the timing had a lot to do with maybe the lack of folks who came forward.”

Funk said in an interview Monday that while he isn’t interested in seeing Cristo Rey miss out on its contract, he was “pleased” the mayor wants to create a more transparent and inclusive process. Funk also wrote a column for this news organization criticizing the mayor and the city’s decision to award public dollars to a private religious school.

“I wasn’t interested in having Cristo Rey lose out on what contracts already been established — I was more interested in making sure that the city clean up their procurement process and how they outreach to the school districts,” Funk said. “So that something like this doesn’t happen in the future.”

But Khamis, who said he received many “angry emails” over the contract, said it’s not within the “purview of the city” to fund education programs.

“The fact that some of these school districts are feeling left out — I think they should should have the full picture of what we are doing to help education because I don’t want the world to know that we’re not doing anything,” he said.

Planned Parenthood Funding

Also at Wednesday’s meeting, committee members moved forward with a proposal to fund up to $250,000 for Planned Parenthood clinics after the nonprofit organization opted out of Title X, a program that provides grants for birth control and reproductive health care services.

The health care provider refused to comply with a “gag rule” mandated by President Donald Trump that now makes it illegal for any Title X recipient to provide patients with information on how or where to get an abortion.

“While we support the county’s lead role in improving public health in Santa Clara County, San Jose women face a health emergency that requires a fast and coordinated response,” said Councilmembers Magdalena Carrasco and Sylvia Arenas in the funding proposal. “Our residents who are mostly under-insured women and families will lose access to basic health care services because of the reduction in funding.”

But some lawmakers raised concerns about securing enough funds to help Planned Parenthood. Councilmember Dev Davis said she wants to explore using “private funds” instead of taxpayer money as an alternative solution.

“I am very supportive of this and I want us to be able to move forward if we have the funds,” Davis said. “But I also know that as we’ve discussed, we have to fill our potholes, we have to provide our infrastructure and we have to provide other services like parks and libraries and public safety. And so we have to be very cautious with every dollar we spend on something that is not a core service.”

While Khamis also supported the motion, he cited concerns with expanding new services when vital infrastructure, public amenities and staffing the city’s police department need to be prioritized first.

“I would like for the county to pay for all of it,” said Khamis. “Why aren’t we asking the county to pay 100 percent of the bill? It’s 100 percent their purview.”

But Carrasco fired back, saying that while the city has to be “diligent” about how it spends money, it should fund women’s health care services instead of lesser priorities such as lunch programs for seniors, a cineplex projector, or a fireworks show.

“All someone has to do is a PRA to see what we fund. Is that potholes and pavement? Is that all Parks and Recreation? I would say that I would rather have my money go defend women’s bodies and their choices,” said Carrasco. “Women’s bodies are under attack.”

“And yes, maybe the county will take care of it,” she added. “I would like to be in partnership with our county because we serve 36,000 women.”

The Santa Clara County Supervisors will vote on exploring options to fund Planned Parenthood on Sept 10.

Contact Nadia Lopez at nadia@sanjosespotlight.com or follow @n_llopez on Twitter.

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Comments (20)

Rocky BalboaAug 26, 2019 at 9:24PM

Liccardo’s bellarmine HS buddy and campaign finance chair was recently hired by Cristo Rey to run the very program the grant funded. How much of the grant was to pay his salary? Corrupt Liccardo!! Shame! Shame! Shame! Recall Now!

Grand Jury investigation? How many times to we need to receive proof Liccardo is corrupt?

After review of the list of people in the founders circle I see many notable family names. These are the very wealthiest of family names and power hitters along with their children that the Santa Clara Valley’s famous silicon industry has ever produced. Of course as well, many of the religious, Jesuits (Society of Jesus), which have benefitted from those families largess while under their tutelage. It is good and rare to have San Jose Spotlight bring some sunshine into the ways of the inner sanctum of the politically well connected, and as well to those connections which directly have benefitted from those alliances. It is hard enough for the poor in the community to find equal footing among such overwhelming odds, but this takes the cake. Sam and company need to do a little introspective and think about the larger picture. It wasn’t really necessary to run this contract through in such an obviously underhanded way, but none the less it was.

Lordy, when can the media leave well enough alone? A little more investigative work might have uncovered just how successful Cristo Rey is in raising the bar for underprivileged kids and families. I’m a sponsor to a lesser degree than some of those founding families, but was sold on its integrity within 5 minutes of introduction to the program. Now we have “watch dog” opinions getting in the way of things, causing upset, and just making it harder for things to get done efficiently. Not to mention individual opinions of “impropriety”. At some point you have to allow people to make decisions and move on. Perhaps if other school districts of those 3000 notified should look at doing a better job of running what they are responsible for.

Its the media’s job to expose this type of thing! Corrupt Sam Liccardo’s HS buddy & campaign finance chairperson was just hired to run this program @ Cristo Rey, which means SJ taxpayers are on the hook for corrupt Liccardo’s payola to his gang. No one believes this was a level playing field and that Cristo Rey didn’t get preferential notice where the other schools received the bare minimum notice. Wake up dude, if you’re in bed w/ corrupt politicians, then perhaps you’re part of the problem.

All City contracts over a certain amount must be publicly bid. Companies and organizations that wish to apply need to get on the bidding list. It’s not rocket science. Rebidding the contract rewards inattention and sour grapes. You snooze you lose.

The fact that a person who the article did not name. went to Bellarmine College Preparatory is not an isdue.

If Bellarmine is the issue then you had better investigate how many employees at City Hall actually went to Bellarmine. Check the D.A.s office. Check the County. Chech the State.

The fault does not lay at City Hall. Sam is not the problem.

In my uneducated, opinion, The Districts that did not apply are at fault. Especially “East Side” and “San Jose Unified”. How dare you exist as a Educational System and not forward you correct Email Addresses everywhere.

The fault is in the lap of the unprofessional employees who feel we Tax Payers owe them a check for not doing their job. Stop sleeping on the Desk and get back to fighting “Tooth and Nail” for every Educational Grant, Bond, Loan, Donated Dollar, and Penny. Then spend the funds appropriately. Earn your money and you will gain our trust.

Does the East Valley students deserve better at the School Board?

Or

Do we accept the fact that ineptitude is standard procedure for our Administrations that are directing our childrens future?

I know how I’m voting – No on Incumbents and No on Increased Taxes and Bonds.

Oh, but the devil is in the details…..CR hired Sam’s buddy to manage the program this grant would fund in Dec 2018, but the other schools weren’t notified of the opportunity until April 2019, just as they were in the throes of the final months of school. Does anyone really believe that CR was not notified under the table prior to April? Just a lucky guess that they should hire Sam’s HS buddy four months earlier? GIVE ME A BREAK!

Bellarmine Mafia. Goes back as far as my family tree. Just look at Sammy’s Uncle Lenny. Class of 59. He ripped off more people than anyone could ever count up. Even his own family. The Liccardo kids used to get laughed at by the Bonnano kids. Liccardo’s Gramp showed up from Brooklyn and ran a grocery store. And “saved” Bellarmine. Yeh right.

Really? Staff/Council were not concerned at all when only 1 school bid on a $900K grant? Guaranteed if this were a purchase of goods for $900K and only 1 company bid red flags would have been set off and staff would have reached out to potential vendors instead of bringing this to Council for approval.

It was reported that under the grant terms part of the money will be used to pay tuition which means it pays for religious instruction in violation of the U.S. and California Constitutions. That is the more important issue.

There shouldn’t need to be a law for politicians to know it is wrong to use the government to help support, promote, or teach religion, but we do have such laws–the U.S. and California Constitutions. The U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion” or taking any action that favors one religion over another, or over nonreligious belief.

California’s “No Aid Clause” is even more clear and specific. The city is prohibited from making an appropriation, or paying any public funds, or granting anything to or in aid of any religious sect, church, creed, or for any sectarian purpose. California Constitution Article XVI Section 5.

There may be nothing more important than keeping government and religion separate. The city needs to fix this immediately and save the city needless litigation costs in trying to support an act that is morally wrong anyway.

Thank you for writing about this issue. The Mayor tends to favor charter schools and private schools and while helping schools is not a problem but as the Mayor of this city he needs to be sure all schools have equal access to the money and opportunities this city has to offer. Not long ago, the Mayor was on the news upset that San Jose Unified did not open Promise Academy. San Jose Unified spoke person advised Promise Academy had not met the goal of enlisting enough students. His negative comments were unnecessary and he should of not commented on this issue since loss of enrollment at our schools is a real issue.

How do you explain Cristo Rey having the foreknowledge to hire Sam’s HS buddy to manage this program 4 months before anyone other school was even notified of the grant? That’s one mighty big coincidence!

Instead of crying about the issue, get down to [brass tacks], go to the City Clerk and demand Public Information Request be brought.

Talk about this issue not being Rocket Science, the answers are there or they have been erased.

Then start pointing fingers as needed.

To bring up other Bellarmine families regardless of their historical background in this City is uncalled for, unless like I said previously, you include those in every level of Government all the way to the White House.

Bellarmine is not the issue. Cristo Rey is not the issue. Put the target where it belongs. Other School Districts in the area did not apply.

The time of year being to busy for Districts to respond is a ridiculous excuse that only indicates the School District are to inept to deal with any new funds. Not have people on staff who are looking forward to future review of revenue sources is not the fault of Cristo Rey. They were hungry so they were looking for a handout.

The City was more then Happy to oblige them.

Remember, East Side and San Jose Unified, “When you point the finger at someone else, – THERE ARE THREE MORE POINTING RIGHT BACK AT YOU”.

Our government at the City level seems to approximate what is happening at the Federal level. The sunshine laws are continuously set aside in meetings. If it looks bad then it sure as hell isn’t good. We need to dig further on this one. This will come back to hurt everyone who has touched this piece of business. The digging must continue. Like Tip O’Niel likes to point out, “All politics is local.”

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